SAS delivers innovation, enhances proven software solutions

Combining business and industry knowledge with proven technology, SAS, the leader in business intelligence (BI), rolled out a new software solution for the retail industry and four enhanced versions of existing SAS offerings.

All five solutions are built on the SAS Enterprise Intelligence Platform, a proven technology platform that brings together data integration, predictive analytics, traditional BI reporting and intelligence storage.

The SAS platform and the software that runs on it help organisations turn raw data into intelligence, better business decisions and competitive advantage.

"For more than 30 years, SAS has remained committed to customers, reinvesting almost a quarter of revenues - 24% in 2006 - in research and development. These five SAS solutions demonstrate SAS' customer-driven innovation," said Goran Dragosavac, product manager, Analytical Intelligence at SAS SA.

For the retail industry, SAS has unveiled SAS Market Planning and Portfolio Optimisation, a new real-estate planning product that joins the strong line-up of SAS Retail Intelligence Solutions and helps retailers optimise the selection of new store sites via an innovative consumer-centric methodology. By choosing the best site for a new store, retail organisations can more quickly recoup the capital expenses of purchasing and developing real estate, and help ensure profitable operations for years to come. This new solution is a collaborative offering from SAS and its partners ESRI and BearingPoint.

SAS also delivered the latest version of SAS Merchandise Allocation, featuring enhanced usability and scalability. It gives retailers the ability to fulfil demand by facilitating distribution of the right merchandise to the right stores and channels. Allocations created through this solution are based on fashion and seasonal trends; customer demand; and store, channel and location attributes. With SAS Merchandise Allocation, retailers can optimise allocations at the item or store level, increase productivity through automation and reduce distribution costs.

For manufacturing and all service- and distribution-oriented companies, SAS released the latest version of SAS Service Parts Optimisation, a component of the SAS Service Intelligence suite. SAS Service Parts Optimisation helps forecast short-term, new-part and life cycle demand for spare parts. It calculates optimised inventory and order quantities for parts-distribution systems, helping manufacturers maintain adequate stock levels, maximise response times and improve customer satisfaction.

For IT decision-makers, SAS launched the latest version of SAS IT Resource Management. This solution is the core component of SAS IT Intelligence, which helps optimise the impact of IT on the organisation and facilitate effective IT governance. It delivers a single platform for combining data from business systems and the entire spectrum of IT infrastructure along with IT service process data and financial data, incorporating wider business goals into IT performance, and reporting the results of IT initiatives throughout the organisation.

And finally, SAS rolled out the latest version of SAS Solutions OnDemand: Veridiem MRM (Marketing Resource Management). This hosted solution, one of several SAS Solutions OnDemand, gives marketers the analytical power of SAS to continuously plan, measure and optimise the impact of marketing activities on overall revenue and profitability. As a hosted solution, SAS manages the solution infrastructure, so companies deploying it need not worry about IT support, deployment, troubleshooting or maintenance. They can instead focus on achieving a higher return on their marketing investments.